


Until The End

by Jitaeri



Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Angst, Crime, Drama, F/M, M/M, Memory Loss, Romance, Vampire AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 05:24:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14687391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jitaeri/pseuds/Jitaeri
Summary: I will steal your soul with a bloody kiss and you will be mine forever.





	1. "You're a Fool."

**Author's Note:**

> Slowly transferring my work to AO3 from AFF. Still rewriting this fic into a much longer fic.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Youngbae calls it quits with Seungri, but is attacked on the way home.

  
_"You're a fool."_

The moment those words left Seungri's mouth, Youngbae had decided he had enough. The table tipped as he abruptly stood up, nearly sending his untouched beer into Seungri's lap, but the bastard was lucky and the beer sloshed harmlessly inside its glass. It took a moment for Seungri to comprehend what was happening, but soon his glossy eyes found their way to Youngbae's retreating figure and he held out a hand to halt Youngbae's departure. He managed to grab the hem of Youngbae's leather jacket, momentarily stopping him.

"Youngbae, where ya goin'?" he slurred, making it obvious that he has had a fair amount of drinks already.

Youngbae turned back and frowned.

"I'm done with this. I'm done with  _you,"_  he said calmly. “I know you don't always think before you speak and I'm tired of you hurting people with your carelessness and ignorance.”

_Tired of you hurting **me**._

Seungri continued to stare at him, trying hard to understand what Youngbae was saying. The amount of alcohol in him didn't help any.

“Until you learn to act responsibly, I'm out,” Youngbae finished sternly. He waited a few seconds for the message to sink in before he yanked his jacket out of Seungri's grasp. Unfortunately for Youngbae, this turned out to be the wrong course of action. A waiter was standing directly behind him as he freed himself from Seungri's hold and Youngbae collided into a tray of alcoholic beverages.

His jacket and T-shirt took the brunt of the damage and he shriveled his nose at the smell radiating off of him.

 _Great,_  he thought bitterly.  _Just great_

Not wanting to stay in the club any longer he waved off the waiter, who was bowing and apologizing to him profusely, and escaped into the dance floor before Seungri had a chance to catch up with him. Quickly moving through the sea of bodies, he weaved in and out of gaps where people weren't actively trying to grind their bodies together. The pulsating music coupled with the strong odor of human sweat and the smell of the alcohol that spilled on his clothing made him feel light headed, only increasing his desire to leave.

Just as Youngbae was nearing the exit, he bumped into a man in the midst of talking up a girl, sending the man's drink directly down her shirt.

“I am so, so sorry,” Youngbae apologized, bowing both to the man and the woman the drink spilled on. The girl was nice enough to accept his apology, but the man she was talking to was not as forgiving. The exit was within sight as Youngbae maneuvered through the crowd. He was only a few steps away from freedom when he was roughly pulled back by the hem of his jacket for the second time that night. Youngbae was about to face his captor when instead of a face, he was met with a fist.

Blessed with quick reflexes, Youngbae pulled back from the attack, however he wasn't able to avoid it completely. The ring his assailant wore clipped him on the edge of the mouth and he felt the familiar sting of a cut lip as he staggered backwards into the crowd. The people around him thinned out considerably as the man he had bumped into earlier pulled his arm back for another blow.

“Man Seok!” the man's terrified girlfriend (spilled drink girl) cried as she latched herself onto the man's arm and pulled him away.

Muttering a garbled, “Sorry,” that made his lip sting, Youngbae made a dash to the exit.

Once the cool night's air hit his skin, he let out a sigh of relief.

Not wanting for anyone to suffer his horrid smell or question his disheveled appearance, Youngbae opted to walk to his apartment instead of taking the bus.

“Today's just my lucky day,” he said to himself as he trudged along the sidewalk, replaying the last fifteen minutes of the night in his head.

 _How is it possible for one person to be so unlucky?_ He wondered as he recounted everything from his conversation with Seungri, to the confrontation with the angry ring man.

With everything that has happened that night, all Youngbae wanted to do was go home. In his mind, he entertained thoughts of changing the apartment’s security code so that Seungri would have a hard time getting in. Images of Seungri being forced to gather enough coordination to shove a key into a keyhole came to mind, but to his surprise, he didn’t find any amusement in the imagery. It just made him sad.

 _Has it finally reached that point?_ Youngbae wondered.  _The point where thinking about Seungri just leads to sadness and disappointment?_

He shoved his hands in his pockets as he continued to walk along the empty streets and let out an uncharacteristic shiver. The temperature was cooler than it was when he and Seungri first arrived at the club. It was a surprisingly cold night considering it was the middle of summer. Absentmindedly, he wondered if he closed his bedroom window, not wanting to sleep in a cold room. The more he thought about his window and the apartment, the more he felt like he was forgetting something very important.

It finally came to him in mid-step.

_The security panel has been broken for three days now. I need to use a key to get into the apartment._

He paused and frantically began to search his jacket and pants for the key.

_The key is not in my pocket._

_It's probably back in the club._

His movements slowed as he was hit with the bitter truth; 

_It's probably with Seungri._

He suddenly remembered arriving at the club and handing Seungri his set of keys.

 _“You trust me, right?”_ Seungri asked and flashed him that signature smile of his that made Youngbae’s heart beat fast.  _This time will be different,_ Youngbae reasoned.  In that moment he wanted to believe in the younger so badly that he was only able to say one word.

_“Yes.”_

But it hadn’t been different at all.

Seungri played him and Youngbae allowed it to happen, just like he always did

Youngbae made a U-turn and started his journey back to the dreaded club, cursing his own foolishness. The way back was just as empty as before and he encountered no one. As he walked, the temperature seemed to steadily drop the closer he got to the club. He was about a block away from his destination when something caught his eye.

Off in a small alleyway directly next to the club, he could distinctly see two figures, a male and female, doing...something. His cheeks flushed at the most obvious implication that came to mind: It was a club after all where alcohol was served at pretty cheap prices. People get drunk, dancing ensues, one thing leads to another and…well… sometimes the house was just too far away.

He could see their bodies pressed close together, their shadows mixing into one, but it still didn't look right.

He didn't know why, but Youngbae felt like something was just  _wrong._

“Hey!” he exclaimed as he walked into the darkness. In an instant, he saw a blur of movement followed by a figure collapsing onto the ground.

Youngbae ran towards the fallen figure and knelt besides them. It was a woman, the female half of the couple he saw. She wore a sleeveless black dress that came up to her thighs, showing off much skin and leaving Youngbae a little flustered. She was unconscious and though it could have been his own odor, he thought he smelled alcohol on her.

“Miss,” he said, gently pressing his hand to her shoulder to shake her a bit. “Excuse me, Miss!”

She was completely unresponsive.

“Didn't your mother teach you to mind your own business?”

The voice sent chills down his spine and Youngbae whipped around to see a man looking down at him with a slight smirk on his face. The man had red stained lips that dripped with what eerily resembled blood and Youngbae immediately tensed up, feeling the dangerous atmosphere building up around him.

“She was having a good time until a nosey little shit interrupted her offering,” the man laughed as he walked closer to Youngbae, licking the blood off of his lips.

At first, he didn't understand what the man was saying, but the answer soon dawned on him.

Gently, Youngbae turned the woman's head to the side and sure enough, there were bite marks along the base of her neck. Not only that, but there were bruises on her arms and a particularly nasty one on her right temple. Blood continued to flow from her injuries and Youngbae fought the feeling of disgust building within him. It all made sense now; the woman was drunk and lured out here by the man, who used her as the victim in his sick, twisted, vampire fantasy.

“You're sick!” Youngbae cried, standing up with clenched fists to face the perpetrator. He hated people who took advantage of the weak and vulnerable and he especially hated people who took advantage of women.

“I  _needed_ her. She came with me willingly and I only took a little...sip.”

The taller man smiled his wicked smile and looking from the fallen girl to Youngbae, licking his lips as if he was about to enjoy a particularly good meal.

Youngbae could see it in his eyes; he could see that the man  _believed_.

“You're insane,” Youngbae muttered as he slowly backed away from the crazy man. “You really think you're a vampire?”

“Let's find out,” the man said sinisterly and in a blink of the eye, Youngbae found himself pressed against the brick wall, a hand twisting his arm behind his back and another hand pressing his face against the wall. Behind him, the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end and he could feel the man's breath on his skin.

Youngbae was not weak. He worked out regularly, ate a healthy diet and though he was far from bulky, his small frame was covered in thin, lean muscle. Even then, the twenty-five year old man could not escape his captor's iron vice hold. Youngbae couldn't even speak for even a quiet groan of pain was quickly silenced with a violent shove into the wall that reaffirmed who had the upper hand over whom. A wave of fear washed over his entire body as panic set in.

He could not fight back, could not call for help. He was helpless. 

The man pressed his body close to Youngbae as he caged him from behind, one hand holding Youngbae's twisted arm firmly against his back and the other hand caressing the side of his face, his neck, his shoulders. Youngbae began to feel scared for an entirely different reason as he felt lips on his neck, his jaw. 

 _Oh, God. Please, no,_ he prayed silently in his head.

Without warning, the man suddenly bit the lobe of Youngbae's ear, as if to test his wares before deciding he was good enough to bite.

An icy cold hand suppressed the scream he wanted to let out as the man roughly pulled down the neckline of his T-shirt off to one shoulder. The press of lips on his neck became harsher as the man sucked hickeys into the delicate skin of his throat and Youngbae froze. 

For the briefest of moments as he felt sharp teeth scraping over his skin, Youngbae  _believed_. To be able to subdue a man so easily... To have teeth that sharp and to be so cold...it was impossible. Nobody could be that strong, that cold, or have teeth that sharp. No one  _human,_ that is.

But the impossibility of that thought had him forgo the idea all together and so he rationalized the situation into something that was far more realistic:

He was going to be bitten by some crazy, vampire wannabe, sexual predator.

The prospect of getting out of his situation wasn't any better, but at least it made sense.

But finally,  _finally,_ some luck befell him that day when a loud crash echoed from within the alley, disrupting his captor just as he was about to sink his teeth into Youngbae's neck. One moment, Youngbae was trapped against the wall by his captor. In the next moment, the pain in his arm was relieved and the body that was pressed so closely to him previously was no longer there. Before Youngbae's brain could even process the fact that he was free, he was knocked off his feet from some unknown force that sent his body flying into the air. The breath was knocked out of him as he landed with a hard  _thud_  on cold pavement that sent shocks of pain to the tips of his fingers and toes. Even in his disorientated state, Youngbae could hear the sounds of combat, the cries of pain and the muted thuds of fists making contact with flesh. Knowing the danger he was in, the moment he recovered enough to breathe again, Youngbae was on his knees and he automatically scrambled in the opposite direction of the fight. He found himself at a dead end, but saw the faint outlines of a large, metal trash can and crawled behind it.

With his heart pounding in his chest as his mind raced to find his next course of action, the moon suddenly revealed itself from behind the clouds that had been obscuring it from view, allowing him to see much more clearly than before. Despite the fear, curiosity won over him as Youngbae peered around the corners of the trash bin. 

A thin and wiry man wearing a hooded sweatshirt was attacking the deluded vampire wannabe. Youngbae felt a tiny dent in his pride for being unable to put up even half the fight the thinner man was putting up now.

They grappled and rolled on the ground, with the delusional man looking the worse for wear, when Youngbae caught a glint of something shiny, something metal flash between the two figures. He watched as the hooded man gained a window of opportunity when he rolled on top of the predator and without hesitation, he plunged the glinting object into the other man's chest. He held it there as the predator's thrashes grew weaker and weaker, until all movement below him ceased before getting back onto his feet. The hooded man wasn't even winded.

It took a few moments, but it finally registered in Youngbae's mind that the glinting object was a knife and that he had just witnessed a man being stabbed, possibly even murdered. He had just seen a man  _die_  right before his eyes. His whole body began to shake involuntarily at the thought.

Suddenly, the hooded man looked up and they made eye contact.

The world stilled as Youngbae gazed into the eyes of  the man who had just committed murder without fear, without any sort of hesitation. But as he looked into the hooded man's eyes, something didn’t make sense in his mind. How could he fear the man who had just saved his life?

Slowly, the man approached him and Youngbae found himself standing up as well, leaving the safety of his hiding spot. He should have been running away, he should have been calling the police, but Youngbae felt compelled to approach the man as if some sort of unseen force was pulling them together. 

 _This man will not hurt me,_ was the prevailing thought in his mind, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

In a matter of moments, they were standing face to face, though the man had adjusted his hood so that his face was partially obscured once more. From what little he could see, Youngbae could tell he was handsome, though thin, almost unhealthily so. A surge of worry prompted Youngbae to do something he would never dream of doing to a stranger. He reached his hand out and touched the stranger’s slightly jutting cheeks, his defined jaw line, the point of his chin.

As he withdrew his hand, Youngbae couldn’t tell which was stranger: the fact that he had just touched a stranger so intimately or the fact that the man just stood there and simply allowed Youngbae to do so. There was a silence only broken by the sounds of their breathing as Youngbae struggled to find his voice. He wanted to thank the man, however absurd that sounded, but the words just wouldn't come to him. The man was staring at Youngbae, staring at his lips that opened and closed without uttering a sound and when Youngbae thought he finally found his voice, the words were lost when he abruptly felt wet lips pressing gently against his own.

What surprised Youngbae wasn't the fact that the man had kissed him, but that Youngbae himself had immediately kissed the stranger back. The moment Youngbae reciprocated the kiss, it became something more intimate than just an exchange of lips between strangers. Youngbae felt arms around his waist pulling him close as he automatically wrapped his arms around the stranger broad shoulders. He allowed the kiss to deepen, his mind becoming clouded by a desire so strong he forgot about the man that had just been stabbed, the woman lying unconscious on the ground. He forgot about the punch in the club, the waiter and the spilled drinks, he forgot about...

 _Seungri_. 

It took him several seconds before he came back to his senses and his eyes widened belatedly in shock

_This isn't me. I don't go around kissing strangers. I'm not...Seungri... I...I...._

Breathless and flustered, he pulled back from the heated kiss and distanced himself from the hooded man, who continued to smile at him wordlessly. Youngbae could feel himself smiling back at him as well before his mind caught up with him again.

 _What the hell am I doing?_ Even as he was thinking that thought, his body was still as he allowed the man to close the distance between the two of them once more. A hand reached out to caress Youngbae’s face, a parallel to the action that Youngbae did just moments before. Gentle, yet rough finger tips grazed the side of his cheek, the tip of his nose, the bottom of his lips and he watched a frown of displeasure manifest on the stranger's face as his fingers gingerly skimmed over the cut of Youngbae's lip. Even though the very same hands that were touching him had been grasping the knife that was used to kill a man only moments before, Youngbae felt no fear, no discomfort. Youngbae even found himself leaning into the touch, his eyes closing of their own accord at the gentle caresses of his skin. For a moment, he felt almost... _content_.

That feeling didn’t last long before he felt fingers threading into his hair, his head being pulled back, and then…

Nothing.

The man had grabbed a handful of Youngbae’s hair and bashed his head into the brick wall. The action was quick and Youngbae had no time to respond, no time to even register the pain as he slipped into unconsciousness.

 

 

The hooded man caught Youngbae's limp body and gently placed him on the ground. He eyed Youngbae's bloody head wound and winced, as if pained by the same wound that would undoubtedly cause Youngbae much pain in the future. He bent down over Youngbae's still figure and stroked his hair gently as the moon became shrouded by dark clouds and darkness descended once more. 

In the shadow of the night, the man pulled down his hood and his eyes began to glow an eerie red, one that matched the dark flowing crimson that flowed freely from Youngbae's wound. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered to Youngbae's unconscious form. 

He turned his back to Youngbae and walked over to the other unconscious male where he retrieved the knife that was embedded within the man's chest and listened to him sputter his last few breaths before making his way towards the fallen woman. 

When the police would finally arrive on scene ten minutes later, they would find only one body lying cold on the concrete pavement of the alleyway. 

Only one body and nothing more. 

* * *

A/N: The main bulk of this chapter remained the same, however a few more details were added here and there to give a little more insight into what happened between Seungri and Youngbae. Youngbae's encounter with the vampire was extended a bit and his interaction with the hooded mystery man was lengthened as well in order for future events to make more sense (and also for my own personal satisfaction, heh heh). 


	2. "Of Course I Care. I Always Care."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Youngbae wakes up in the hospital and Seungri vows to start anew.

 

You know that something bad has happened to you when the world comes back into view in bits and pieces. The very first thing Youngbae noticed was the blinding white lights that shone down on him followed immediately by what had to be the most massive headache he has ever experienced in his life.

Head pounding, Youngbae blinked at his surroundings in an attempt to make sense out of the blurry blobs and blended colors that he was seeing.

“Don't squint too much. You'll ruin your eyesight.”

He recognized the voice instantly. Though Youngbae wasn't exactly happy, he couldn't deny that the familiar voice also brought him a sense of reassurance and relief. After allowing his eyes to adjust for a few more moments, Youngbae was able to clearly see Seungri's figure looming over him and the familiar background of a standard hospital room came into view. 

Seungri was still dressed in the same attire he had been wearing when they were at the club: a gray suit vest over a pink collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Even though his hair was a bit tousled and his eyes were red rimmed, Seungri looked every bit the suave gentleman and Youngbae hated that his heart wavered at the sight. 

"How are you feeling?" Seungri asked, obviously more sober than the last time Youngbae had seen him, which only brought up more questions as to what in the world happened to him when he stepped foot out of that club and how much time has passed since then. Seeing the worry in Seungri's eyes, Youngbae decided to answer his question. 

"Like...like somebody took a sledgehammer to my head," Youngbae murmured, wincing as he brought a hand to massage his temple only to find that his head was wrapped in bandages. Confused, he turned to look at Seungri. "Seungri, what happened to me?" 

Seungri furrowed his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth tightened before he spoke. 

"I was hoping that _you_ were going to be able to tell me that," Seungri whispered gravely. "Youngbae-hyung, a man found you unconscious and bleeding from a head wound out in the alleyway next to the club. From what the police have been able to gather in the hours since they've found you, someone had..." At this point in his explanation, Seungri suddenly faltered and clenched his fists, gathering the fabric of his pants into his hands and then subsequently releasing it after drawing in a deep, calming breath. "Someone had...somebody had _hurt_ you Youngbae. In the alleyway, they found the place where...there was evidence that someone _smashed your head into the wall_."

"Somebody...my head...What?" Youngbae was having such a hard time following Seungri's explanation that he completely forgot the fact that the younger had spoken his name without attaching any sort of honorific to it. _Alleyway? Wall? Why would he be in an alleyway and for what reason would someone hate him enough to bash his head into a wall?_ "H-how were they sure that somebody...? I mean, I don't think I was drunk, but maybe I..I fell and- ." 

Seungri abruptly grasped Youngbae's hand in both of his own so tightly that it made Youngbae worried. He had never seen Seungri so...rattled.

The younger man leaned in close to Youngbae, his voice coming out barely above a whisper.

"Do you recall anything that happened after you left me at the club? Anything at all?" 

 Seungri's eyes were staring at him intently, suddenly full of an emotion that he has never shown Youngbae before. 

"Why do you suddenly care so much?" Youngbae asked quietly.

"What are you talking-? Of course I care. I always care about you," Seungri replied, sounding quite affronted that Youngbae would even ask such a thing. 

Youngbae could only smile sadly at the younger as he slipped his hands out of Seungri's grasp. "You only care about me when it suits your interest to do so."

There was a beat of silence as Seungri processed the accusation and Youngbae turned his head away, partially because turning his head towards Seungri agitated his wound and partially because he didn't want to hear Seungri confirm what he had just said.

"Hyung, about earlier...I..."

“Bring me home,” Youngbae interrupted. He turned his head back so that he was facing Seungri again. "I want to go home now. _Please_." Youngbae's voice cracked as he finished that last sentence. He didn't mean to come off sounding so tired and defeated, but he hated hospitals and he knew that Seungri was well aware of the fact. 

“We'll leave,” Seungri promised, his voice a lot more gentle and warm than it had been previously. “But first, you have to speak to some people.”

That was when Youngbae noticed that they were not the only ones in the room. Two uniformed police officers, accompanied by a doctor, were standing by the doorway and promptly made their way to his bedside as soon as their presence was acknowledged. One officer was young and tall and the man that was obviously his superior was short and stout. Both officers shared a hardened expression and carried a no-nonsense vibe that Youngbae could feel even from across the room. It seemed that whatever the police wanted to talk about was not going to be very pleasant. 

“Dong Youngbae-ssi. We would like to ask you a few questions,” calmly stated the stout officer. After exchanging a look with Seungri, Youngbae realized that he couldn’t avoid it and he was going to have to speak with them regardless.

 

With a sigh, Youngbae closed his eyes and wished they had given him more pain killers for his headache.

* * *

The interview with the police couldn't have lasted more than an hour, but it felt like Youngbae had been speaking for days when he was through with it. The doctor had given him a quick once over before giving the officers the okay to begin their questioning, but only after sternly warning them that they had an hour max before he would have to kick them out. The questioning began with a set of simple questions.  _What is your name? How old are you? Are you a male or a female? Is this your current address?_ Youngbae answered the questions easily enough, but he didn't understand why he had to provide such information when a quick search of his resident identification number (that he willingly gave) would tell the officers exactly the same thing, but in less than ten seconds. When he asked about the strange questions, the younger police officer stepped forward to explain that they were just verifying his identity and also testing the extent of his memory loss.

"You don't recall the attack, but with a head injury like yours, it's not unnatural to experience the loss of some short term memories leading up to the traumatic event," the doctor further explained.

"Everyone keeps referring to it as an 'attack'," Youngbae said slowly. Through the small pane of glass that separated his room from the hall, he could see Seungri (who was forced to wait outside for "investigative purposes") staring anxiously at him. "Seungri also told me that there was evidence of this 'attack'. What evidence is he talking about?"

The officers exchanged an uncomfortable look with each other at the inquiry which only made Youngbae even more curious. The stout and elderly officer, or Officer Lee, sent an inquisitive look at the doctor, who only shrugged and said, "Nothing that I have seen so far indicates that he is mentally or emotionally unstable. It might even be useful in jogging his memory." The doctor turned to address Youngbae this time. "But only if you feel like you're ready for it. In the event that some of your memories are restored after actually seeing the site of trauma, it might be, well, _traumatic_ for you to recall."  

"I want to see," Youngbae said without hesitation. "It's hard to believe what everyone is telling me. Even with the injuries, even as I am talking with you right now, I feel like I'm not talking about something that has _actually_ happened to me."  

With that, Officer Lee sighed and pulled out his smart phone. He tapped on the screen a few times, before handing his phone over to the Youngbae.

"These are copies of images from the crime scene. The quality might not be as good on my phone, but the original camera is at the police station currently being filed away as evidence."

Youngbae took the phone and started looking at the pictures. The pictures corroborated everything that Seungri and the officers had told him. The alleyway, the blood, the big white X that marked the place where they found him lying unconscious on the ground... An uncomfortable feeling settled in Youngbae's stomach after seeing the pictures. He really had been attacked and he didn't recall a thing about it. 

"There was blood on the brick wall, which is where we think you hit your head. From the blood splatter indicated by marker number 4, the angle at which the blood hit the ground indicates that you had to have been bleeding while you were standing up, which further supports the theory that you sustained your head injury from the wall and not from having fallen to the ground," the younger officer, Officer Kim, explained. "There were also signs of struggle, as indicated by the markings on the ground here and here." The officer cleared his throat a little after that, somewhat hesitant about what he was about to say next. "You...you weren't getting... _intimate_ with anyone while in the club, were you?"

Youngbae couldn't help but flush a little at the implication.

"No, no I wasn't."

"No sex, not even kissing...?" the younger officer prompted.

"Nothing while in the club," Youngbae reaffirmed. 

"What about in the days prior to going to the club?" 

Again, Youngbae shook his head in the negative. 

"Okay, well," Officer Kim continued. "I, uh, think this is something you should see with your own eyes. Doctor, do you still have the mirror...?" 

The doctor nodded before he stood up and exited the room. When he returned, he had a small hand mirror in one hand and before Youngbae could ask what it was for, the doctor turned the mirror towards him and Youngbae paled at the sight of his own reflection. 

The right side of his head was covered in bandages and his cut lip was already starting to scab over. But he had already known about those injuries; the throbbing of his head and heaviness of the gauze was obvious when he came to and he remembered the man and his ring, so the scab on his lip wasn't unexpected. What he didn't know about were the dark bruises peppering his throat and the side of his neck, bruises that looked an awful lot like love bites. From his memory, Youngbae knew that he did not have such markings on him before or during his time in the club. That meant that he got those marks after leaving the club, within the block of time that he couldn't recall, perhaps even during the assault.

_Somebody had their lips on me and I...I can't remember a thing._ Youngbae felt his skin crawl at the thought.  

The doctor began speaking to him next.

"At first, we thought that they were signs of strangulation, but the size and placement just weren't right. Upon closer inspection, we saw what looked to be teeth marks on your ear so we deduced that the bruising on your throat were, well, hickeys," the doctor explained calmly. "Lee Seungri-ssi also did not recall you interacting with anyone in an intimate fashion in the club, which is why we flagged this down as a case of attempted sexual assault."

Just hearing the words sexual assault sent shivers down Youngbae's spine and before he could ask, the doctor answered his unasked question. "There were no other indications of direct assault." 

After a few more minutes of talking about his injuries, Officer Lee redirected the conversation to questions about the events leading up to Youngbae leaving the club and everything that he could remember after that. Youngbae managed to recall everything starting from him leaving the club and also coming back because he didn't have the keys to the apartment. He remembered approaching the club and then seeing a woman ("she was hurt or unconscious, I think," he recalled), but everything after that was blank. They questioned him about the events leading up to seeing the unconscious woman again and again until he grew sick of giving the same explanation over and over. After another fifteen minutes of answering the same questions, Youngbae finally grew impatient. 

"I've told you everything that I know, everything that I remember. Why do I have to repeat myself?" Youngbae snapped, rubbing his forehead in a futile attempt to rid himself of his headache.

"Less than five minutes remaining, gentlemen," the doctor warned. 

"Sorry, it's procedure. May we ask one more question before we let you go? I swear that it's not a question that we've already asked," Officer Lee asked quickly. 

Youngbae sighed, already feeling physically and emotionally drained from the questioning. However, he didn't see the harm in answering one last question and if it would help with the investigation, he was more than willing to comply. He nodded his head to signal the older man to continue.

"What is your relationship to Lee Seungri?"

"E-excuse me?" Youngbae stuttered. He was not anticipating _that_ particular question. The older officer suddenly leaned in very close to Youngbae, his voice dropped to just barely above a whisper.

"It seems that the two of you had an argument, which prompted you to leave the club, correct? I'm also under the impression that the two of you are quite... _intimate._ " Officer Lee paused a moment before continuing. "I've been a police officer for a long while and sometime, it's the people we least expect-."

"No," Youngbae said firmly while clenching the bed sheets in his fists. 

The eyes of the older officer softened in almost a pitying manner. "I know it's hard to accept, but we're just trying to go through all the possibilities," Officer Lee said gently. 

"Well, you can forget about that particular line of thought," Youngbae said tightly. 

Before either police officers could get a word in edgewise, an alarm started going off. The doctor stood up and showed the timer that he had set up on his phone.

"As you can see, the one hour time limit has passed. I'm going to have to ask you to leave," the doctor said as he held the door open for the officers. The officers looked reluctant to leave, but they begrudgingly did so. Seungri came back into the room and rushed to Youngbae's side, who had finally unclenched his fists after the officers' departure. 

"Youngbae, are you oka-?" 

"Let's go home, Seungri," Youngbae interrupted. "I want to go home." Youngbae stared at the younger man with tired, pleading eyes and Seungri had no choice. When Youngbae looked at him with eyes like that, it was impossible to say no. 

"Okay," Seungri answered before unexpectedly leaning down to place a gentle kiss on Youngbae's brow.

Youngbae would have smiled if doing so didn’t pull the stitches on his forehead in such a painful manner. Instead of questioning the action, Youngbae just closed his eyes and basked in the rare public display of affection from Seungri. 

* * *

Eventually, Seungri managed to arrange for an early discharge after arguing with a doctor and various hospital staff for over an hour. Youngbae couldn't lie; he felt extremely grateful to Seungri when he came back with a smile on his face, holding the necessary papers he needed to sign in order to be released. Seungri handed him a pen and gave him a basic rundown of what signing each page meant. Again, Youngbae was glad that Seungri was there, because he was already getting a headache just from glancing at the paragraphs and paragraphs of tiny print in front of him. There was no way he would have been able to read through that paperwork and sign it with the confidence that he didn’t just volunteer to give a kidney away or something. With the sort of luck he has been having lately, he really wasn't sure of anything anymore.

After all that was said and done and Seungri came back from handing the papers off to the physician in charge, the older man was more than ready to leave. Youngbae swung his legs over the side of his hospital bed, but even something as simple as that had his vision swimming. Seungri grabbed him by the arm to steady him and Youngbae grunted his thanks. When he didn't immediately let go, the older man gave him a questioning glance.

“You don't plan on leaving the hospital wearing  _that_ , do you?” Seungri gestured to the hospital gown Youngbae didn't notice he was wearing.

Youngbae felt embarrassed, but then again he had a right to be a little out of sorts. He practically had his head cracked open not too long ago, for God’s sake.

“Where are my clothes?” Youngbae asked, looking around the barren room for any signs of his clothing.

He took a seat on the bed as Seungri exited the room and returned with a plastic bag that contained his neatly folded clothes. However, the clothes were in the exact state they were when Youngbae was found, bloodstains and all.

He looked at the bag distastefully and then looked away. The sight of it made his head hurt more.

“Yeah... I don't think I can wear those anymore,” Youngbae murmured.

As if he had it all planned out, Seungri let out another grin and pulled out the bag he had been hiding behind his back.

“My Please-Forgive-Me-For-Being-An-Idiot present,” he said simply and Youngbae took a curious peek inside of the gift bag while wondering when in the world did Seungri find the time to buy him anything. 

Youngbae saw a clean pair of jeans, a crisp white T-shirt, and at the very bottom was a newly bought leather jacket that even from the first glance looked very expensive. Youngbae stared at the jacket it awe until Seungri elbowed him gently in the side.

“Check the pockets,” Seungri advised and Youngbae did so. His fingers closed around cold metal as he reached into the left hand pocket and Youngbae let out a small smile when he pulled out a key ring with his apartment key hanging loosely from it. There was also a new addition to the key ring; a metal ornament in the shape of a panda's head. Youngbae smiled at the little inside joke.

“I know that this can't possibly make up for everything, but I wanted to give you this as a promise. I know I've messed up a lot and... I want to start fixing my mistakes. I want to change, starting from here. From now on, I'll always be there when you need me,” Seungri explained as he grabbed Youngbae's hand and curled his fingers around the ornament. “A little piece of me with you everywhere you go.”

Youngbae suddenly couldn't find the words to speak. Was this a dream? A hidden camera prank? But then, he remembered that Seungri's promise record hasn't been so clean lately and the excitement Youngbae had initially felt died down a bit. But still, it was a step in the right direction.

 

“Just shut up and drive us home.”

* * *

The whole car ride back to their apartment was filled with silence and Youngbae wasn't sure if it felt awkward or not; he had been too busy trying not to fall asleep to notice.

When they finally arrived at the place they called home, Seungri wordlessly grabbed all of Youngbae's things and waited for Youngbae to get out of the car before wrapping his unoccupied arm around Youngbae and guiding him to the apartment. They had never acted so intimately in public before so initially, Youngbae had felt embarrassed, but considering how late it was he figured that nobody would see them anyway.

_If this is Seungri's way of apologizing, I can get use to this_ , Youngbae thought as he followed Seungri into the house.

The sight of the black, leather couch upon entering the room nearly had Youngbae on his knees. He was feeling so tired, and the couch looked so inviting that he walked right up to it and sprawled on it, claiming the entire piece of furniture to himself.

He could feel the coolness of the leather through the bandages on his head and it felt good on his wound. As he got himself into a comfortable position, which was to lie down on his stomach on the couch, Youngbae felt Seungri's hand touch his shoulder gently.

“Before you fall asleep, you should eat something and take your meds."

"I know, I know," Youngbae sighed. "Can I just stay on the couch for a few more minutes? It feels so nice to not be sitting in a hospital bed anymore." 

Seungri took a second to ponder the request before suggesting another idea entirely. 

"How about you sit here for a moment while I cook up something for us? We can eat on the couch and maybe even watch a movie until you fall asleep."

If Seungri noticed how blatantly shocked Youngbae was at his suggestion, he didn't show it. Instead, he disappeared off into the kitchen, leaving Youngbae to ponder over Seungri's sudden thoughtfulness. 

_Maybe he really meant what he said about changing and starting anew,_ Youngbae thought quietly to himself. He wanted to believe in it so badly, but he couldn't quite do so, not yet. He didn't want to be hurt and disappointed all over again. Instead of dwelling on Seungri and his promise, Youngbae turned on the TV and spent a few minutes flipping through the channels until he settled on a documentary about zoo animals. He had barely started to learn about the mating habits of whales in captivity when Seungri emerged from the kitchen with a steaming pot in his gloved hands, with two bowls and two pairs of chopsticks stacked on the lid of the pot. 

"Ramyeon?" Youngbae guessed and Seungri smiled at him. 

"Too obvious?" he asked and Youngbae could only chuckle as Seungri dished out two bowls of instant ramen for the two of them. 

Youngbae was surprised at how hungry he actually was and managed to finish two bowls before calling it quits. He took a handful of prescription meds that Seungri had grabbed from a 24-hour pharmacy on the way home, and after setting aside the dishes to do for later, they settled next to each other on the couch to finish watching the documentary. By this point, Youngbae was actually starting to feel tired, but he didn't say anything because they were only half way through the film. He started to notice that he was nodding off when his head started bobbing up and down, but he tried his best to stay awake, fighting off another headache as he did so. After such an eventful and emotional night, Youngbae wanted nothing more than to be in Seungri's comforting presence and forget about everything that happened, just for a moment. 

Somehow, Youngbae had ended up with his head snuggled up next to Seungri's chest during the documentary and Seungri had automatically wrapped his right arm around him in response, hand absentmindedly stroking the un-bandaged portion of Youngbae's head. By that point, the meds were starting to kick in and Youngbae was too far gone to push Seungri and his comforting body away. All he knew was that his head was hurting, he was tired, and it felt good to have Seungri hold him like that.

Exhausted from the events of the day, Youngbae snuggled even closer into Seungri's chest and let his throbbing head and Seungri's gentle caresses lull him to sleep.

* * *

A/N: Chapter 2 edits are done! The talk with the doctor and police officers was reworked along with Seungri and Youngbae's return to their apartment. In the original version of the first two chapters, I had vaguely hinted at this strained relationship between Baeri. I decided to change it in order to reflect the complexity of Baeri's relationship, which is somewhere between friends/friends with benefits/strained lovers. You know that Youngbae feels hurt, but you don't know why. You know that Seungri feels guilty, but you don't know what for. Now, something major has happened that kind of forced them to re-evaluate where they stand with each other. More of that coming up in the next chapter. 

I also wanted to give Youngbae and Seungri more time together because they're going to be separated for a long while, which I had planned early on, but then I belatedly realized after six chapters that there were hardly together in the first place. So, instead of just implying a relationship, I decided to give them a few intimate moments as well. 


	3. "I Know And I'm Sorry."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungri misremembers, but makes an admission.

When Seungri woke, it was to a feeling that felt foreign and strange to him. He was not tired and sleep deprived like he often was on a weekday following an eventful night out. The dreaded cloud of a hangover pressing down on his being was also nowhere to be seen. In fact, for the first time in a long while, his mind was startlingly clear and he felt well rested. Not only did he feel well rested, he felt...content, which was such a foreign notion to him that as his mind began to wake up and function properly, he started to wonder why it was that he felt that way.

He didn't have to wonder for long as a body stirred for a moment next to him and suddenly, it all came back to him: the club, the police, the hospital, and 

"Youngbae," he breathed quietly, almost reverently as he reminded himself that yes, the person sleeping in his arms with their head resting against his chest was Youngbae. He had grown so used to the weight of Youngbae beside him that he had almost forgotten that the older man was even there at all.

 _Of course it was Youngbae_ , he thought quietly to himself as a feeling of warmth flitted about in his stomach, a warmth that slowly began to spread to the rest of his body. 

 _How long has it been?_ he wondered as he held Youngbae closer to him, snuggling into the warmth that had always soothed him, a peace that only Youngbae has ever provided. _How long has it been since we've been this close?_

Seungri buried his nose into Youngbae's black hair, careful to avoid the bandages of his wound in the process, as he tried to recall the last time he and Youngbae had been this physically close. How long has it been since they had last found comfort in each other's presence?

To his dismay, he found that no matter how hard he tried to recall, he couldn't remember and the realization had hurt like a physical stab in his heart. _Too long,_ Seungri thought. _It has been far too long._

Seungri stayed where he was for as long as he could. He didn't want the warm feeling of content to dissipate, didn't want this re-established connection with Youngbae to fade. He closed his eyes and held Youngbae close, counting the time that passed with the beats of Youngbae's heart and selfishly enjoying every inhale and exhale of Youngbae's breath.

He had been so close, so close to losing it all, to losing Youngbae.

Seungri's whole body quivered involuntarily at the thought, the movement jostling Youngbae enough to momentarily wake the man out of his deep slumber. 

Bleary dark eyes sleepily blinked up at him and Seungri felt a pang of guilt in his chest for having woken up the older man from his first stint of uninterrupted sleep since he had first left the hospital.

"Sorry, hyung. Let's get you to sleep in something a bit more comfortable, hmm?" Seungri suggested softly as he untangled himself from their tight embrace. He helped the man to his feet and draped one of his arms over his neck to support him. Youngbae leaned into him heavily, still drowsy from the drugs he took earlier and undoubtedly still feeling the exhaustion from his whole ordeal, not that Seungri minded any of the extra skinship. 

As they slowly made their way down the hall toward's Youngbae's room, Seungri thought he heard Youngbae mumble something about already being comfortable before, which brought a smile to his face.

At least he wasn't the only one that had been enjoying their previous position.

Seungri felt it as they neared Youngbae's room, a stream of cool air coming from the crack beneath the door. Frowning, he paused outside the door to Youngbae's room for a second and stood still while he held Youngbae firmly against him. Cold air pooled around his bare feet and he felt Youngbae bristle against him, indicating that he felt it too. 

It didn't take much for Seungri to conduct a quick change of plans and he turned away from Youngbae's door to walk past the bathroom and to his own bedroom where the temperature was much more comfortable.

"Sorry, change of plans," he murmured to Youngbae, even though he was fairly certain that the older man had already fallen back asleep. He pulled his light comforter up to Youngbae's shoulders and watched for a few minutes as Youngbae settled into his bed. 

Afterwards, Seungri ventured back to the hall. As he walked, he felt the temperature around his feet drop lower and lower, reaching its lowest point right outside of Youngbae's door. It had been a long time since he had last been inside of Youngbae's room. His hand wrapped around the door knob and then he paused, fighting off the feeling that he was invading Youngbae's privacy even though he could recall many occasions of Youngbae being in his room.

The door opened with a click and Seungri made up his mind to pop in and out of he room as quickly as possible. 

There was nothing remarkable about the inside of Youngbae's room. Upon first glance, you saw that it was fairly neat and modestly decorated, not unlike his own room. Immediately, he was able to spot the source of the cold air: the window was wide open, which allowed the uncharacteristically cool summer's night air to seep into the room. It was night again, which surprised Seungri for that meant that he and Youngbae had slept most of the day away. He knew Youngbae had been tired, but Seungri didn't realize that he had been that exhausted as well. _Easily fixable,_ Seungri thought as he approached the window sill. Before he could simply pull the window shut, he paused as something caught his attention. He leaned his head close to the window pane and furrowed his brows at the fine spider web like cracks upon the window's glass surface. 

 _Why didn't Youngbae say anything about a broken window?_  he thought to himself. It looked like the pane was still in tact and so he figured that closing the window would not cause further damage. He made a mental note in his mind to call a repairman come morning.

The window was a bit difficult to close, like all the other windows in their apartment, so he had to use a fair amount of force to pull it shut. That little extra force was all it took for the glass to shatter upon closing, startling Seungri into jumping backwards as the glass rained down upon him. 

Perhaps it was a testament to how out of it he truly was, but his first instinct was to pull a nearby trash can close to him, bend down, and immediately start to pick up the larger pieces of glass. It would have been fine if the wind hadn't knocked something over, which startled Seungri into dropping a rather large piece of glass onto the floor. He felt the jagged edge of the glass cut into the skin of his palm as he lost his grip on it and he swore at the stinging pain that followed. Blood ran down his forearm and dripped onto the floor. The cut was deep.

Quickly, he grabbed the closest piece of fabric he could find, which happened to be a dark gray shirt of Youngbae's, and wrapped it around his hand, pressing it firmly against the wound.

"Fuck," he hissed, mentally berating himself for being so foolish and reckless. He moved quickly and quietly throughout the apartment, rummaging through drawers and cupboards to look for a first aid kit or bandages. When he found neither, he swore again as he racked his mind for a solution. Seungri gingerly unwrapped the T-shirt to check on the wound and he saw that the bleeding had lessened somewhat. The gash across his palm was still raw and painful though, too large to leave untreated without the risk of infection or worse. Did he need stitches? he wondered, his heart pounding at the thought of having to leave Youngbae for a trip to the emergency room. Could he bring the older man with him, perhaps? Wake him up and take a taxi there? _But Youngbae couldn't even walk the short distance to his room without my help..._

After a moment, he remembered a little twenty four hour convenience store a few blocks down the street. There was bound to be something he could buy to use as a quick fix there. He could bandage up his hand for the night and wait until Youngbae was awake enough to accompany him to the hospital the following day, he decided. 

 _It'll be quick, I won't be gone long_ , he reasoned as he went into his bedroom to grab a light jacket to guard against the chilly night. On his way out, he  slowed as he neared the bed, looking over the figure that was sleeping upon it. Seeing Youngbae sleeping comfortably in _his_ bed and in _his_ room, a sight that he thought he would never see again, one that he used to think he didn't _want_ to see again, allowed an emotion he wanted to bury to emerge from deep within him. Seungri couldn't help but stray to Youngbae's side, eyeing his closed eyes and slightly parted lips as he settled himself onto the edge of the bed.

 _This_ , he thought silently as he used his good hand to run the back of his fingers down the curve of Youngbae's cheek and jaw. _This is what got you in trouble in the first place_. God, even like this Youngbae was beautiful. He could feel his heart racing again as it always did when he touched Youngbae and just like all the other times, he did he best to calm it to no avail. No matter how hard he tried to control his emotions, it just wasn't good enough. As he had figured out long ago, it was much easier to mask his emotions while drunk instead of sober. 

 A sudden feeling of nostalgia came over him as he looked down upon Youngbae's sleeping form. The memory was a bit fuzzy in his mind because of the alcohol he had consumed, but he could still recall the pointedness of Youngbae's statement.

"You're a fool." Youngbae's voice echoed inside of his mind, a mix of hurt, anger, and disappointment evident in his tone. 

 _I know I am,_  he thought as he leaned down and catiously pressed his lips against Youngbae's. He couldn't help himself. He had been foolish from the start. _I know and I'm sorry._

* * *

It was originally going to be one long chapter, but I figured it could be broken into two parts so that you guys can see it faster so...excuse how short it is  :) I promise the second part will be coming soon! 

On another note, I want to encourage everyone to be strong in light of TOP's scandal. He did wrong, but we're not going to abandon him. We promised to be there until whenever, through the good times and the bad. He'll need our support now more than ever, so stay strong! 


	4. "Do Not Be Afraid."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Youngbae has a nightmare and Seungri finds help.

Along a single, lonely road that cut across a white plane of emptiness, two figures plodded along in silence, hand in hand. One of the figures was a tall and aged man who walked with an obvious limp. His companion was a young child, no older than four or five years old. The child was humming an unrecognizable tune to himself as he skipped along at a leisurely pace knowing that if he went any faster, his Grandfather wouldn’t be able to keep up with him. They continued along the road in companionable silence until the elderly man tugged on the youngster’s arm and they slowed to a stop.

“Youngbae,” his Grandfather said. “Can you see it?”

“See what?” Youngbae asked. All he could see was the never-ending dirt road that disappeared into the white horizon. Only the two of them and the dirt road existed in this world, so there really wasn’t much of anything to see or comment on. Without answering, his Grandfather gave him a warm smile and started walking again and Youngbae followed along, though he was no longer skipping.

They walked and walked in silence once more until Youngbae heard something. It was faint at first, but grew louder the further they walked down the road. It sounded like it was getting closer, this mysterious noise that sent a chill down his spine.

“Grandfather, where are we going?” he finally asked, his voice wavering from the unknown fear that gripped his heart as they walked further along the road and therefore closer to the sound that Youngbae now recognized to be rushing water.

When he looked at his Grandfather again, his Grandfather was now donning the type of gown that hospital patients wore. Youngbae knew this because he had been to the hospital before to get some shots before school started and had seen patients wearing the exact same outfit. He had held his mother’s hand as they walked down a corridor to the pediatric ward and they had seen a few patients wandering around in the hallway.

His Grandfather looked just like the patients he had seen before with his mother.

Grandfather didn’t answer his question and Youngbae now knew that he never would.

In the distance, he saw a speck of something. That spec grew into a waterfall and Youngbae realized that the road that they were traveling on led to the top of that waterfall.

He did not want to go there.

“Grandfather, please,” Youngbae whispered as he tried to pull his hand out of his Grandfather’s grasp but found that he was unable to do so. With every step that brought them closer to the waterfall, Youngbae tried harder and harder to escape his Grandfather’s vice-like grip. He grew frantic, desperately jerking his hand away from his Grandfather, but it was as if the harder he tried to escape, the tighter his Grandfather’s hold became. Youngbae was in tears now, begging his Grandfather to let him go, to turn back and walk away from the roaring waterfall that he knew, he just knew, was bad news.

They shouldn’t go there. He shouldn’t go there.

“Grandfather, _please_!” he cried desperately as they finally reached the end of the road.

And his Grandfather stopped.

The elderly man smiled the same smile and stepped over the edge, bringing Youngbae with him.

Youngbae had expected his stomach to drop as they fell over the edge, but they did not fall. They were no longer on the road, but they did not fall. Heart racing in his chest, Youngbae looked around them in confusion as his Grandfather continued on his linear path, even though they were no longer walking on solid ground. It felt like solid ground, but there was nothing there. They were walking on thin air.

Youngbae was so awed that he remained silent as his Grandfather dragged him along until they reached the middle of the waterfall, walking on invisible ground or air or whatever it was.

When they reached the center, they stopped and his grandfather turned to face him. He let go of Youngbae’s hand and cupped Youngbae’s face with both of his hands.

“Do not be afraid, Youngbae,” he whispered.

After that, all Youngbae could hear was the sound of his own screaming in his ears as the invisible ground gave way to nothing and both grandson and grandfather began to free fall through the air.

* * *

Twenty-five year old Youngbae woke with a start. His eyes were wide, his heart was racing, and his body was drenched in sweat. It was dark and he was alone in a bed that felt too big for just one person. It took a while for him to calm down and for his heartbeat to slow as the nightmare faded, leaving behind a pounding headache and a too dry throat.

When he finally came to his senses, he realized that the bed was too big because Seungri was gone and when he tried to call out his name, only a garbled noise could be heard. Youngbae cleared his throat and fought again a tongue that felt too heavy and thick in his mouth.

“Seungri,” he tried again, managing to clearly produce a sound this time. Not hearing a response, he closed his eyes and braced himself for what he was about to do next.

Kicking the sweaty sheets off was the easy part and he managed to get into a sitting position with only a slight groan. It was the standing and walking part that was difficult, but he managed to drag his too hot body and too heavy head into the kitchen where he promptly downed a class of water (or three) from the sink. With a bit of water in him, his headache lessened somewhat and his tongue no longer felt thick and heavy in his mouth, but his body still felt hot and disgustingly sticky. The only other thought in his mind (besides the lingering question of where Seungri had went) was the bathroom and the shower within it.

It was much easier to will himself to the bathroom and it was there that he caught a glimpse of what he looked like for the first time since the accident.

It was not a pretty sight.

He could hardly recognize the image of the man reflected in the mirror. Pallid complexion, red-rimmed eyes, and dark circles that gave him an almost haunted look: he was a mess. His busted lip had begun to scab over and the bandages that covered his head wound needed to be changed because some blood had started to show through the outer layers.

Youngbae frowned as he looked at himself in the mirror, as he further inspected what had become of him. His felt a strange sensation as he brought a hand up to his lips and traced a fingertip over the scabbed over portion, then followed the corner of his lips to the lines of his jaw, and further down to his neck. He felt a shiver go through him as he reached the base of his neck and his hand lingered over a spot covered by his shirt. _There_ , he thought. It was there. Slowly, he pulled the neckline down towards one shoulder and he saw it. Peaking from the neckline of his T-shirt, he saw the slight discoloration of a bruise.

Suddenly, he was back in the alleyway. This man, who was stronger than him, was holding him up against the wall. His eyes were crazed looking and he kept uttering things that didn't make any sense, that Youngbae couldn't understand. Ice-cold fingers muffled the scream he wanted to let out as lips bit the lobe of one ear, danced across his jaw and down his neck, sucking bruises into delicate skin.

No. He snapped himself out of it and suddenly, he was in the bathroom again knuckles turning bone white from gripping the edges of the sink so hard. He felt so dirty from the flashes of memories that he saw, for surely that was what they were, memories? And he felt so _angry_ : angry at his assailant for doing such things to him and another person (the woman, he remembered. There was a woman, even if the police didn't believe him), and he felt even angrier with himself for being so fucking helpless.

The throbbing in his head was worsening again. _This won't do_ , he thought. _I have to calm myself_. Without another second of delay, Youngbae went to the tub to start running a bath before he began carefully stripping out of his clothes.

* * *

Seungri didn't think as he rushed into the convenience store, ignoring the ringing bell sound the door made as he went through and started scanning the aisles for the medical aid that he needed. Perhaps he was feeling too panicked and rushed, but he scanned the aisles and he just couldn't find anything useful. As time went on, he truly felt the panic rising within him and his breath began to quicken as he looked up and down aisles while pressing Youngbae's T-shirt tightly against his wound.

 _Fuck, fuck_ fuck, he thought. _I should have gone to the pharmacy even if it was a bit further away. I'm taking too much time here. Youngbae is ­—_

"May I help you, sir?"

Seungri came to a halt and looked for the owner of that voice. At the end of the aisle was a tall man wearing a store vest over his blue button down shirt and black jeans. He towered over Seungri, yet Seungri got the impression that he was scaring the man, and perhaps he was. He wasn't feeling very sane at the moment. Before he could give the store worker a proper answer, Seungri's eyes dropped to the box he was holding in his hand and realized that the worker was holding a first aid kit. Seungri's gaze slowly worked its way up from the kit to the worker's worried face, pausing a bit before he gave an answer.

"...Yes, you may."

Fifteen minutes later, he found himself in the back room of the store, the employee lounge, he guessed. The worker had asked him to sit at a little folding table that must have been where the employees sat during their lunch breaks. He waited with his injured arm lying over the table, his good hand still holding Youngbae's tee firmly against the wound. The employee had gone to close up the store temporarily, which meant locking the doors and placing a "out for lunch" card in the front window. He also dimmed the lights to the front of the store before he returned to the back room and back under Seungri's scrutiny.

The tall man sat across from him at the table and began taking things out of the first aid kit.

"Don't worry," he said. "I washed my hands real well and cleaned up the table a bit before you sat down."

Seungri could only nod his head in response as he watched the man work. He seemed to know what he was doing, so Seungri fought down the nagging thought that he probably shouldn't let a random convenience store employee  fix up his wound. It was a bit sad, but he knew other than taking more time to go to the hospital or to get to a pharmacy, this was his next best option since he obviously couldn't do it himself and Youngbae was in no condition to help. Every second away from Youngbae filled him with a dread that he couldn't quite place and already, he felt the urge to be by his side. To distract himself, Seungri took to examining the man as he began to unwrap the T-shirt Seungri had used to cover the wound as carefully as possible.

Lee Jongsuk, was what his nametag read and now that Seungri was actually paying more attention, he found that the guy was surprisingly attractive. Thick lashes, lush lips, and a beauty mark at the corner of one eye, his face was handsome and boyish. He did not look like a person that should be working the graveyard shift of some neighborhood convenience store.

Seungri let out a hiss of pain as Jongsuk dabbed disinfectant over the cut.

"Sorry," Jongsuk mumbled with a wince, though he didn't stop or slow his working at all. Seungri watched as Jongsuk took a pair of tweezers and pulled a tiny glass shard out of his skin that he didn't even realize was there. More disinfectant and more cotton swabs later (a dirty pile had accumulated at one corner of the table by this point), though the wound hadn't stopped bleeding, it definitely looked better than it did before. Carefully, Jongsuk put a square piece of absorbent dressing over the wound before he began wrapping Seungri's palm with white gauze. Jongsuk was slow, careful, and methodical about it, but Seungri still felt that he was taking too much time. 

"I think that's enough," he said after Jongsuk wrapped his palm five or six times. "I'm in a hurry to get back home."

Jongsuk didn't try to argue with him or anything. In fact, he remained mostly silent throughout the whole ordeal and Seungri was glad that no questions were asked for he probably wouldn't have answered them anyways.

He was led back to the front of the store where Jongsuk took down the lunch sign and switched the lights back on again. He unlocked the door for Seungri to leave and Seungri actually found himself pausing for a moment. While Jongsuk had been busy unlocking the door, he had already left some money on the counter for him, and Seungri hoped the guy would be selfish enough to take it for himself.

The whole ordeal felt so strange to him, yet he couldn't allow himself to ponder over the situation any longer than he already had been. Youngbae was waiting for him and over an hour had passed since he had left.

"Thank you," were Seungri's final parting words and all he got in response was a slight nod of acknowledgement.

* * *

An update after so long! 

 

 

 


	5. "I Trust You With My Life."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungri feels guilty and Youngbae talks about trust.

For many days, Youngbae did not let Seungri out of his sight. It was hard not to worry when he came back to the apartment sporting a heavily bandaged hand and carrying around a blood stained t-shirt. The next day saw an immediate return to the hospital for a proper medical professional to clean and stitch up the nasty gash in Seungri’s hand and Youngbae was by his side during the whole process, despite his purported dislike of hospitals. 

They also stopped by the pharmacy, at Seungri’s insistence, to inquire about over the counter fever reducing medications that wouldn’t interfere with Youngbae’s existing prescriptions. He had noticed that Youngbae went to bed  and woke up feeling slightly heated and it worried him. 

“It should go away with time once he regularly starts taking his prescriptions,” the pharmacist reassured him though he gave a similar warning to the previous doctor for them to come to the hospital should Youngbae’s feverishness persist.

Many days pass in which the majority of time was spent in each other’s presence as they each worked on their individual recovery. Seungri was very glad that the office hadn’t bother contacting them about work in the meantime, considering the circumstances. He knew, however, that he would be back in the office far quicker than Youngbae would be, opening yet another box of future worries at the thought of Youngbae being by himself for a period of time during his recovery.

Youngbae fussed over Seungri’s hand and Seungri allowed him to do so for some, admittedly, selfish reasons. For one, he couldn’t deny that he enjoyed being the focus of Youngbae’s attention and concern. It made him feel wanted and assured him that contrary to what Youngbae had said to him in the past, he still very much cared about Seungri. They hadn’t brought up the night of the accident again since Youngbae’s initial discharge from the hospital, but he could still recall Youngbae’s words to him, even though he was fighting against the sluggishness of his drunken brain at that time.

 _“I’m done with this, done with **you** ,”_ Youngbae had said bitterly and even his drunken recollection of the memory was enough for his stomach to drop to his feet and for his heart to jump to his throat at those words.

 _I deserved it_ , Seungri reminded himself, feeling sick and disgusted that he needed the threat of losing Youngbae to some random attack for him to realize how important Youngbae is to him and how much not having the older man in his life would hurt. 

The other reason he allowed Youngbae to fuss over him was for Youngbae’s own sake: It allowed Youngbae to focus on something else other than the accident and what had happened to him. 

It unnerved Seungri that even after a week and some days, the police haven’t identified any possible suspects, though deep down he knew he could hardly blame them. They just had so little evidence to go off of. There were no cameras in that part of the alleyway where Youngbae was attacked, though CCTV cameras by neighboring stores next to the club showed Youngbae walking down the street and out of view, presumably going home, and then walking back again sometime later, which matched his story about needing to come back for his keys. The woman that Youngbae had mentioned was also nowhere to be found. No witnesses came forward, no anonymous calls about the incident came in, nothing. There was nothing but a skeleton of a story and Youngbae’s incomplete memory of the event as the only pieces of information for the police to go off of.

 _Other than the crime scene itself,_ Seungri reminded himself with a grimace. The fact that Youngbae had been hurt by someone was certain, they just didn’t know who that someone could possibly be. 

The police have called once or twice since then. They asked to speak to him and then Youngbae separately, but the questions they ask never seem to change. 

_Are you sure you don’t remember anything else from that night?_

_Are you certain that there isn’t anyone out there that would like to harm either Youngbae or you by using Youngbae as a proxy?_

_That_ was what scared him the most. The possibility that this wasn’t some random attack, but was actually premeditated in some way scared the shit out of him. Youngbae was far too nice to have any enemies, but him? Seungri knows that he has angered a lot of people on his astronomical rise in the workplace. He was young, but he knew what he was good at and business was what he excelled in. That was bound to rub people in the wrong way, especially the older men and women that now reported to him as their boss: even Youngbae technically worked beneath him, though they worked in different departments.

Department Head Lee was not someone you could mess with in the workplace and he made sure that all of his employees, young and old, were treated the same. There was no preferential treatment based on age or the amount of time they had spent in the company. If Seungri thought they did good work, he rewarded them accordingly: a good word or two from him at their next performance review was usually enough for the boss to consider a pay raise or even promotion for said employee. He thought his policy of truthfulness would bring out the best in people, and it did: if you showed people that hard work will be rewarded, then more people will be encouraged to work harder.

But could it also bring out the bad and the ugly in people? Could someone hate him enough to try and hurt the people that he loved? That, he wasn’t sure about and he had told the police as much.

“I’ll look out for anything suspicious at the workplace, but its not like I can casually accuse someone of something so heinous,” Seungri said as he recounted his conversation with the police to Youngbae.

“Of course not,” Youngbae agreed as he walked over to the fridge to retrieve a cold bottle of water. “I wouldn’t want to recklessly accuse our co-workers either. I know that the police are just trying to do their job. I just...I just wish I had more information to give them.”

With that, Youngbae sighed as he dropped a few pills into his mouth and washed it down with a gulp of water. Seungri watched him lean against the counter a moment with his eyes closed as he drained the rest of the water bottle and brought a hand up to message his temple again.

He could tell that Youngbae was frustrated with himself and his memory loss, though Seungri has assured him countless times that the police not being able to find the perpetrator was not his fault. What could he have done better? Find a different alleyway in front of a CCTV camera to be attacked in? No, the situation was clearly out of Youngbae’s control.

Youngbae walked over to Seungri’s bedroom and unceremoniously threw himself onto the bed. Seungri followed close behind him, making sure to close the blinds to keep any stray light from coming in (though the sun was due to set in a few hours anyways). He sat on the edge of the bed and began gently rubbing Youngbae’s back as the older man buried his face into the pillows. 

Youngbae was battling the ever-present headaches that seemed to plague him more and more often as of late and Seungri always did the best he could to try and soothe him.

“What did the police ask of you today?” Seungri inquired and suddenly, he could feel the muscles of Youngbae’s back tensing beneath his touch. “If you can’t tell me, you don’t have to,” he quickly backtracked, but Youngbae turned around so that he was facing Seungri and shook his head.

“No, no. It’s not that I can’t tell you,” Youngbae whispered before looking away again. “They were just...they just keep saying ridiculous things.”

At this point, Seungri has joined Youngbae on the bed and he simply pulled him into an embrace, knowing better than to push Youngbae on the matter when he didn’t want to talk about it. Youngbae leaned into his touch and not for the first time, Seungri thought about kissing Youngbae’s neck. 

What he didn’t realize was that he had already done so the moment he thought of it. 

“Is it gone?” Youngbae’s question was what brought him out of the trance. Youngbae turned away and brought a hand up to caress his throat. It took a few seconds of Seungri watching Youngbae tentatively touching the nape of his neck for realization to finally hit him and when it did, he felt like he had been doused by cold water.

Seungri jumped back in shock and almost fell out of the bed if Youngbae hadn’t caught him by the arm. 

“I’m so-I’m sorry,” Seungri gasped, feeling a ball of emotion getting caught up in his throat. He almost felt sick. 

“Wait, Seungri — Stop and look at me.” 

“No, I can’t. I’m...I can’t believe I did that to you, Youngbae. I’m so sorry.”

Why did he do that? _Why_? Why, when he _knew_ that Youngbae would look at his reflection in the mirror, look at the bruises that some low-life left on him and be instantly reminded of that night? _Why_ , when he had looked at those very same bruises and felt anger coursing through his veins at the thought of somebody’s lips pressed against Youngbae’s skin? _Why_ when he _knew_ that Youngbae felt scared because he couldn’t even remember the attack even happening?

“I don’t know why I keep on doing things like this, even though I’m trying to be better. Even though I vowed to be better,” Seungri whispered and it was Youngbae who embraced him this time, wrapping his arms around Seungri’s head and holding him close to his chest. 

He just kept seeing it in his mind over and over again, that fateful moment.

_“You’re a fool.”_

_“I’m done with this, done with **you**._ ” 

_Youngbae walking away from him and a drunken him allowing Youngbae to do so. He didn’t even make much of an effort to follow him._

He’s holding Youngbae so tightly now, because it really was his fault. If he didn’t turn Youngbae away, if he would have just quit being such an asshole to the people that he cared about, Youngbae wouldn’t have left and the attack would never have happened. It was _his_ fault.

Tears prickled the corner of his eyes and Seungri was even more ashamed and more embarrassed. He, of all people, didn’t have the right to be crying at that moment.

“The police,” Youngbae began slowly as he wiped away Seungri’s tears. “They wanted to know if I thought you had anything to do with it.”

Seungri froze. Youngbae pulled away far enough to be ale to look Seungri in the eyes. He brought a hand to caress the skin of Seungri’s neck, the place that mirrored where the bruises once were on Youngbae’s own skin.

“I told them to stop wasting their time. Seungri, I _know_ you. I know you would never hurt me like this, never physically. I trust you with my life.”

Seungri looked into the Youngbae’s eyes and saw the sincerity there, but also...the pain. He didn’t think he needed to ask, but he did so anyway. He wanted to hear it from Youngbae’s own mouth and perhaps then..maybe then he’ll be able to keep his promise. To be a better person, a better man. 

“Never physically...,” Seungri repeated hollowly. 

Youngbae nodded.

“I know I can trust you with my life,” he whispered. “I just don’t know if I can trust you with my heart again. Not yet.”

The tears had stopped by then, but the hollow feeling still remained. Of course, he knew that a few days or a few weeks wasn’t going to be enough to fix a relationship that Youngbae had wanted to end on that night. 

Youngbae was right: he _shouldn’t_ trust Seungri with his heart, not yet. He still has a long way to go to gain his trust again, to show him that he’s not the same person he used to be. 

He could become that someone who could be trusted with Youngbae’s heart. 

As they settled back onto the bed and into each other as they always did, Seungri’s mind started to wander.

He wondered when Youngbae had taken control of his heart so completely that he once felt like he had no choice but to keep pushing him away? 

He had been scared then, he realized. But he has since learned to fear something far worse than Youngbae’s love. He didn't think he could live in a world without Youngbae.

* * *

An update aimed towards Youngbae's birthday, but I finished it a bit early and decided to publish it now. I thought I didn't do a good enough of a job describing the kind of relationship that Baeri had in the first publication of this story, so I guess I'm doing a lot of background relationship building right now, lol.


	6. “You’re Coming With Me.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Youngbae is alone and a man that is not a man is seeking to quench his thirst.

It was still dark when Youngbae woke up the next morning. He released a heavy sigh upon realizing that the twinges of pain in his head were already present, which he recognized to be the foretelling of a massive headache in the making. Tiredly, he brought his fingers up to massage his temples in the hope that the twinges of pain would flicker out of existence before they could progress into something more. He could hear shuffling out in the hallway and he realized that the space besides him was empty. Quickly putting the two clues together, he waited until the door squeaked open and the telling creak of the wooden floorboards gave Seungri’s presence away.

“Heading to the office?” Youngbae asked casually. Suddenly, there was a thud followed by a muffled swear word. Moments later, a nearby lamp was turned on, dimly illuminating the area near Youngbae’s side of the bed.

Seungri was rubbing his elbow as he looked down at Youngbae with a sheepish expression on his face. 

“Startled me into elbowing the armoire,” Seungri explained in answer to Youngbae’s slightly raised eyebrow. The older man released a half-sigh, half-chuckling sound that made the corner of Seungri’s mouth turn upwards a fraction. “And to answer your question, yes. Apparently, you leave the office for a few days and suddenly the whole department falls into chaos.” 

Seungri’s tone was full of mirth, but Youngbae could detect the slight hint of annoyance in there as well. Clearly, the younger had expected more out of his subordinates, but Youngbae couldn’t help but sympathize with his co-workers. Seungri had been out of the office for nearly two weeks. Even worse than that, the timing was quite inconvenient: it was nearing the end of August and they had October deadlines to meet. Companies would be pushing to get projects done in time before the start of winter. It’s difficult to be without direction when you’re extremely busy, something Youngbae could sympathize with. He knew that Seungri wasn’t really frustrated at his workers, though. He was frustrated with the situation.

 _Youngbae’s_ situation, to be precise. 

He mentally frowned at the thought.

He could feel it in the air, Seungri’s hesitance to leave him by himself when they haven’t parted ever since Youngbae’s discharge from the hospital. Youngbae also decided to keep the knowledge about his developing headache to himself: he had no doubts that Seungri would have used it as an excuse to stay after all. 

“I’ll be fine,” Youngbae said as he offered Seungri a reassuring smile. “And you’ll only be a phone call away.” Seungri didn’t respond, his eyes shifting away from Youngbae’s, as if he didn’t want to continue with that line of conversation.

“I’ll be back as quick as possible,” Seungri promised. He stood up and slipped into a suit jacket. “And just so you know,” he said hesitantly with his back turned towards Youngbae. “Your new window is coming tomorrow.” He carefully buttoned up his jacket and used what little light the lamp provided to check his reflection in the mirror.

“You can be back in your own bed as early as Friday,” he finished as he straightened out his already straightened tie before turning back to face Youngbae again. “If you want,” he added with an awkward attempt at a smile.

Of course, Youngbae was completely aware of the reason why Seungri was treading so carefully around the topic. _Does he want to start sleeping in separate rooms again?_ _And if he does, what do they make of their relationship going forward?_ It was a question that even Youngbae realized he didn’t have an answer to, so he gave the most honest answer he could think of.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

It probably wasn’t the answer Seungri wanted, but it was the only one Youngbae could give. Still, Seungri’s eyes softened a fraction, as if he had already expected as much, and he smiled in understanding. He started leaning down towards Youngbae, as if to kiss him, only to stop halfway and quickly pull himself back. 

Youngbae watched in silence, wondering if he would have allowed Seungri to kiss him if he had continued.

Instead of doing that, Seungri cupped one hand over one of Youngbae’s hands and squeezed.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispered and Youngbae could tell he wanted to say something more, but held himself back. He squeezed Youngbae’s hand one last time before he left, making sure to turn off the little lamp and to quietly shut the door behind him. 

There was a few seconds of silence in which Youngbae could clearly picture Seungri hesitating on the other side of the door, his hand still on the handle. It took a few more seconds of silence before the muted thuds of Seungri’s footfalls started again, indicating that he was finally walking away. The front door closed and the chime of the security system being activated confirmed that Seungri had left. 

Youngbae closed his eyes and released a soft sigh.

_“I can’t trust you with my heart, not yet.”_

“Not yet,” Youngbae reaffirmed, though he had to admit that the tenderness in Seungri’s eyes and the way he held himself back made Youngbae’s heart sway a little.

There was still a long ways to go before the old scars can begin to heal, but Youngbae was willing to admit that they were both heading in the right direction. 

* * *

He wasn’t allowed to be here, every instinct within him warned. He shouldn’t be standing outside of some unknowing person’s balcony staring at a broken window on the building directly across from him. He was so thirsty though, he realized and ran his tongue over cracked lips and sharp fangs that were more prominent now because of his thirst. He scratched at a spot on his neck. Pale fingers scratched and scratched against equally pale skin, over two markings that oddly looked like puncture wounds, until the skin became red with irritation before returning back to its normal hue once his scratching ceased.

He did not know who he was or where he was, but he knew that he was surrounded by delicious scents and he was hungry, he was starving.

Even though there were so many tantalizing smells around him, his senses focused onto one particular scent, a scent that came from the apartment with the broken window.

 _Here_ , a voice in the back of his mind declared. _Go here_. The voice was so soft yet firm, commanding him, no, _compelling_ him to heed its words. _Go here_ , it whispered. _Feast here._

The dark haired man that was not a man scratched at his neck again as the unknown voice in the back of his mind urged him to go forth and find prey, to feast and dominate and devour. His throat felt so incredibly dry and his body was weak and on the verge of collapse, but he could feel his pulse quicken at the mere thought of finally quenching this insatiable thirst and hunger that had almost as much control over his body as the voice in the back of his mind did.

 _Dominate_ , the voice whispered. _Destroy and be rewarded_. This time, a tingle went down his spine at the word reward. His fingers traced over the marks on his neck again and he made up his mind, although by that point, his thoughts were no longer his own.

_Feed. Dominate. Destroy._

In a blink of the eye, he was no longer on the balcony staring at the broken window: he was now _inside_ the room with the broken window.

It only took a small amount of effort to push through the rest of the broken window pane. Glass shards left faint scratches on the skin of his cheek and neck and a hint of frustration flared within him.

If he wasn’t so damn thirsty, it wouldn’t have taken much effort to push through the window at all and the insignificant wounds would have healed faster than he could notice them.

 _I’m so weak_ , he despaired. It didn’t feel right, it wasn’t suppose to be so!

 _You will be strong once you feed_ , the voice whispered. 

 _Of course_ , he thought. The voice was always right.

Suddenly, his senses were overwhelmed by a fragrant and delicious scent that called out to him and the presence in the back of his mind withdrew, knowing that its work was done.

 _Yes_ , his muddled mind whispered, already missing the gentle, coaxing voice that promised to reward him. That was all he could think of. His whole entire being, resolutely exclaimed _**yes**_ in hopes that the voice would come back. 

It didn’t.

* * *

Youngbae woke up with a start.

He untangled himself from sweat soaked sheets and groaned as he cracked his back. The room was only marginally brighter than it had been when Seungri had left earlier and a peak through the curtains revealed that it was a very cloudy and overcast day, hence the lack of sunlight.

True to his earlier premonition, Youngbae’s head was absolutely pounding by the time he was fully awake. He could hardly even stand upright, his head just hurts so much, but he willed himself to the kitchen so that he could down his prescriptions with a cold glass of water followed by another one for good measure.

He felt marginally better after getting some fluids in him, but the pain was still there. His head throbbed incessantly and he could hear the rush of blood and the sound of his pulse in his ear. 

Images flashed in his mind, quick snippets of what must of been the memory from that night, but the flashes were too fast for him to decipher and the murderous headache made it far too difficult to concentrate. On top of that, he was covered in a sweat that he had worked up trying to fight off this headache as he slept and though the wonderfully cool leather couch was just steps away from him, the call of being clean was far greater.

 Youngbae didn’t trust his legs enough to not give in while he was in the shower, so he stepped into the bathroom and immediately started drawing a bath. As the tub filled, he carefully started to undress. Youngbae silently thanked Seungri for having the foresight of making him wear button down shirts as of late: now, he didn’t have to deal with the meticulous process of extricating himself from a T-shirt without agitating his head wound.

Before he could completely disrobe himself, a loud CRASH nearly had him jumping out of his skin. 

“Seungri?” he called out on instinct, because _who else_ could it have been? He was still half groggy and for a few seconds it had slipped his mind that Seungri had already left for work hours ago. When the memory of catching Seungri just as he was leaving for work came to mind, Youngbae frowned and reached over to shut off the tap as he considered reasons for Seungri to return after such a short period of time. 

“His hand…,” Youngbae said to himself as he thought about how it was only recently that Seungri got the stitches and bandages removed from his hand. A reopened wound, he thought. There wasn’t much time to contemplate for there was a much louder THUMP and a CRASH that had Youngbae running out of the bathroom.

He rushed out without his shirt, fully expecting to see Seungri on the floor and clutching a bleeding hand after clumsily tripping over the coffee table or something, but he saw none of that. Instead, he saw an empty hallway that lead into an empty living room and small, clear pieces of debris scattered all over the floor. Youngbae took a few cautious steps in his slippers and he heard a distinct crunching sound that made him step backwards out of fright. _Glass_ , he realized instantly. There was a trail of glinting glass leading down the hallway and..into his bedroom?

 _The alarm…nobody deactivated the alarm_ , he realized because the intercom didn’t play the little deactivation tune. _Seungri isn’t here_. 

A chill instantly went down his spine and he felt goose bumps rising along the bare skin of his arms and neck. He should have trusted his instincts to run in that moment for his body had been far quicker to sense the danger that his pain clouded mind had been far too late to detect. 

A tremendous force slammed into him from behind. Youngbae’s hands automatically shot out in front of him to break his fall and he fell onto a pile of shattered glass. He hissed in pain as the shards dug into his skin. A burning sensation shot up his arm, but Youngbae was too distracted to pay much attention to it. Instead, he focused on the weight of something…of someone settling onto his back and pressing him into the ground. 

He should have screamed, should have cried out for help in that moment, but the fall had knocked the breath out of him and all of his attention was focused on escaping from his attacker. As he gasped for air, his body writhed and squirmed beneath the solid mass of his attacker. The blood pounded louder in his ears as the adrenaline heightened his senses. Instinctively, he knew he was vulnerable if he remained on his stomach and so he squirmed and flailed his body in order to try to flip onto his back, not feeling the shards of glass being embedded into other areas of his skin as he struggled.

He couldn’t tell if he had flipped himself over or if the intruder had done the deed for him because suddenly, he was face to face with a dark haired man that looked at him almost hungrily.

“Get off of me,” Youngbae growled when he recovered enough of his breath to do so. At that, the man actually found the audacity to smile at him in what Youngbae could only describe as a shit-eating grin, as if he knew something that Youngbae didn’t. Youngbae felt the first inkling of true fear seeping into him then when the man suddenly clasped his hand around Youngbae’s throat in such a firm hold that even using both of his hands was not enough to break the attacker’s hold on him. Youngbae scratched at the hands restricting his airway with all of his might, but his flailing body was already losing strength. Soon, he was completely subdued, unable to do anything but hold on to the wrists of the man that was choking him to death.

“I’ve waited so long,” the man breathed as he licked his dry, cracked lips. “So long for this.”

Youngbae couldn’t help it: he physically shivered. He shivered not because of the man’s words, but because of the way he said it: how he had leaned in close enough for his lips to brush over the shell of Youngbae’s ear, hot breath fanning over his face as he spoke. 

Something like a fond or even content expression settled onto the man’s face as he lowered his head towards Youngbae’s neck, eyes closed as he inhaled deeply and parted his lips to reveal fang like canines.

Fangs. 

Right then, a sliver of something, of a memory flashed across Youngbae’s mind so clearly that Youngbae felt as if he was in another time and place. He could see it so vividly now: an alleyway, lips on his neck, the feeling of fear and helplessness from deep within him, because he knew that _this_ , whatever that was happening to him right now, this wasn’t _right_ , it wasn’t _natural_. 

But the man was letting his guard down, he realized. _The time to act is now!_

Youngbae’s body suddenly went limp and the intruder smiled an arrogant smile as the hand on Youngbae’s throat moved slightly and Youngbae’s head easily followed the motion so that the left side of his throat was exposed beautifully. With his lower body firmly straddled around Youngbae’s waist, the man smiled a blissful smile as his tongue ran over dry, cracked lips and he lowered his mouth eagerly to meet Youngbae’s neck.

 _Feed_ , a small voice in the back of his mind encouraged and he felt a tingle travel all the way down his spine at the return of the lovely voice.

_**Yes.** _

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to make due on his promise. 

There was only one window of opportunity and Youngbae took it. The particularly large glass shard was only a stretch of his fingertips away from his right hand and the attacker was too overjoyed at Youngbae feigning submission to see his hand inching closer and closer to the glass shard. The moment he wrapped his fingers around its jagged edges, he simply acted on instinct and jabbed it into the man’s neck.

The man let out a painful scream as his hand shot up to his neck where the large piece of glass was embedded. Youngbae kicked the man off of him and struggled to his feet before dashing out of the room. The front door, his only escape, was in sight when he felt hands pulling around his ankle and he fell painfully onto the floor. He looked down to see a face filled with pure anger staring up at him as the man carelessly pulled out the shard of glass from his neck, leaving a bleeding slit of a wound on pale skin. 

The man clambered up Youngbae’s body with ease, despite several kicks to the head and shoulder by Youngbae. In a matter of moments, he was straddling Youngbae between his legs again and both hands were quickly wrapped around his throat. 

“You _filthy_ human being,” the man growled as Youngbae futilely clawed at the hands around his neck. He was sure he was drawing blood as his finger nails scraped against skin, but that did little to deter the man above him. The hold around his neck tightened and Youngbae stopped clawing at the hands around his throat and instead he focused on preventing the hands from crushing his wind pipe even further. 

There was no thinking. His body was in pure survival mode.

 _Please_ , he cried desperately inside of his mind. _Help me! Somebody... **Anybody**_!

He couldn’t have been sure for black spots were appearing at the edge of his vision then, but Youngbae, as he laid dying on the floor, thought that he saw the wound on his attacker’s neck slowly close up right in front of his eyes. The skin and muscle stitched itself closed, the rawness fading to match the skin tone of the attacker until it looked as if a wound had not been there at all.

Through the window he could faintly hear the sound of a police siren, which meant that one of his neighbors heard all of the ruckus and decided to do something about it. If he could just get out of the apartment or hold out long enough until the police came, he'd be free.

_If only...if only...._

As his eyes closed and his consciousness faded, a horrible, terrified feeling settled into the pit of his stomach as flashes of memory from that night flickered across his mind once more, more prominently this time.

 _The same impossible strength, the same cold hands, and the same predatory gaze..._ Youngbae thought as his eyes closed. Even though his body was struggling to breathe, his oxygen starved brain was working furiously to remind him of _something_ , to connect the dots between then and now in order to show him something...something.... _important_...

The grip on his throat abruptly disappeared and the intruder began screaming in pain. Behind the screaming man stood a tall and slender figure pressing a knife into the intruder's leg. Sporting a head of shocking pink hair and a set frown, the man pulled out the knife and re-stabbed the intruder in the lower back.

The cries of agony that followed was nothing to the fear that froze Youngbae to the spot after scrambling towards a wall and sitting with his back pressed flat against it. His breath came out in labored gasps, throat still hurting from nearly being strangled to death.

At that moment, the pink haired man caught his gaze, looked at him and said, "Don't move."

Even if he wasn't frozen from fear, Youngbae wouldn't have been able to disobey the stranger anyways. His fight or flight instinct disappearing now that he wasn't in any immediate danger, the adrenaline was leaving him and slowly, all of the pain started setting in. The pain in his head, from the shards of glass embedded in his back, and the cut on his hand from using a piece of glass as a weapon was building. Combining the fear, pain, and exhaustion he felt, there was no way Youngbae would have dared to disobey the man's order.

Youngbae watched in silence as the man grabbed the fallen intruder by the foot and started dragging him towards the bathroom, leaving behind a trail of crimson blood on the hardwood floor. The sounds of struggle were mixed with the increasingly loud sound of screaming and Youngbae closed his eyes to block out the sound. Exhaustion hit him full force then, and he could feel his mind shutting down. He didn't know if he even had the energy to open his eyes once the man returned, he felt so exhausted.

And then suddenly, the screaming stopped. With the last of his energy, Youngbae managed to partially open his heavy eyelids and watched the man walk out of the bathroom and disappear into his bedroom. He heard the pink haired man exchange conversation with someone, followed by a loud thump, and the man returned with a giant gasoline container in hand. He disappeared into the bathroom once more.

The man was away for only a moment. Soon after exiting the bathroom and shutting the door behind him firmly, the nameless man returned to look at Youngbae. The thought that struck Youngbae the most was the fact that the other man's expression had not changed in the slightest. He still wore a hardened expression and his eyes seemed lifeless, but Youngbae sensed that the man wasn't intending to hurt him. If he really took a moment to think about it, the guy actually saved him.

The sirens were close now and Youngbae could smell smoke coming from the bathroom. Simultaneously, he thought he heard a voice he recognized as Seungri's calling out for him somewhere, though it must have been his imagination. 

"You're coming with me," the man stated quietly, walking past the flaming doorway of the bathroom and towards the fallen Youngbae. Youngbae had neither the strength nor energy to respond or protest. There was a moment's pause as the man suddenly stopped to pick up something from the ground. Whether it was out of kindness or consideration for him, Youngbae didn't know, but the man brought Youngbae's leather jacket and draped it over his bare body like a blanket.

Burrowing into the warmth of his makeshift blanket, the pain and exhaustion caught up with him and Youngbae passed out.

* * *

The man watched as Youngbae's head rolled to the side and his eyes closed. He looked helpless and pathetic slumped against the wall like that, but a wave of sympathy washed over him all the same. 

He pulled a phone out of his pocket, dialed a number, and then waited for someone to answer, shriveling his nose at the smell of smoke and ignoring the sirens coming from outside.

The phone rang three times without answer before he heard a voice hiss his name from the shadows.

“Just what in God’s name have you gotten yourself into, Jiyong?” A man appearing to be in his mid to late fifties was in the apartment now. He wore a white lab coat over khaki colored trousers and his dark brown eyes narrowed in an accusatory glare. 

The pink haired Jiyong remained silent. He ended the call and stuffed the phone back into his pocket. With a strength that didn't match his skinny frame, he lifted Youngbae up off of the ground just as the front door opened and a blonde haired girl called out for Jiyong to hurry up.

"We have to get out of here _right_ _now_! They cleared the entire place when the smoke alarm went off. Emergency services will be here soon, so it’s best that we leave through the roof and quick," she explained with a cough as she finished. The smoke was pouring out of the crack beneath the bathroom door by then and quickly filling up the apartment. She faltered a bit when the gaze of the white haired man fell upon her during the midst of her explanation. 

“ _Chaerin_ ,” the elder man intoned.

Chaerin lowered her gaze and meekly responded. “Chairman.”

The Chairman’s gaze went from Chaerin, to Jiyong, and finally to the sleeping Youngbae in Jiyong’s arms.

“The both of you owe me quite the explanation,” the Chairman said gravely. With another lingering look at Youngbae, he added, “And it appears I won’t be the only one that needs it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
  



	7. "Please Answer"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungri goes to work and something terrible happens.

“Is it true?”

“That ‘Victim B’ they were talking about in the news was Youngbae-hyung, wasn’t it?”

“That’s why you guys weren’t coming in to work?”

“Is he okay? Are you okay?”

“Did they catch the bastard who attacked him?!”

Seungri had barely stepped foot inside the office and already he was surrounded by a group of mostly younger or similarly aged co-workers who could barely contain their curiosity and were just about bursting with questions. Meanwhile, the older end of the office spectrum were keeping their distance and continuing on with their professional work facade, though Seungri could swear he could see their ears perk up with interest as he spoke.

Seungri had told no one other than his direct superiors the reason behind his and Youngbae’s prolonged absence from work. Apparently, the office rumor mill was quick to put together the timing of their disappearance and the shocking news of an unnamed “Victim B” that was randomly assaulted near a popular club. All sorts of strange rumors were going around, including one that claims that Youngbae had survived an attack by a serial killer and was being put into hiding by police. Another outrageous rumor going around was that somebody had placed a hit on Seungri, but they couldn’t get to him and changed their target to Youngbae instead.

That rumor rustled Seungri for a bit, because again there was that possibility: could someone have hated him so much that they would hurt Youngbae in his stead? The thought of that even being a possibility made his stomach churn with guilt. Though the office rumor mill was usually ninety percent wrong, there were some aspects that were true and Seungri wanted to make the absolute facts as clear as possible.

He decided to give everybody the gist of everything that had happened and corrected any false factoids they gleaned from the press or through word of mouth. Yes, Youngbae had been attacked. No, they didn’t know why or by whom. He confirmed that Youngbae was getting better, but that his head injury was still healing and that he couldn’t give them all the details of what had happened due to the ongoing police investigation. Somewhere in the midst of his explanation both the Department Head and the Director of Youngbae’s department joined the crowd. They had worried expressions on their faces and unlike some of the other higher ups, he could sense their genuine concern and sympathy over the matter. They were quick to approach him and the surrounding crowd that had gathered around Seungri gave way so that the two men were able to speak to him face to face.

“We’ve already spoken with him over the phone, but please tell him to take his time to heal and recover properly. His health is far more important than work right now,” the advertising director told him as he placed his hand on Seungri’s shoulder to express his sympathy. The two older gentlemen left with the parting words, “Stay strong.” That automatically created a buzz of excitement from Seungri’s juniors and peers for it was a rarity to have such a cordial and casual interaction with any of the higher-ups. Even Seungri was a bit taken aback by it. He made a mental note to tell Youngbae about it later.

“Alright, now that you’ve all satisfied your curiosity, stop crowding my Department Head and let me steal him so that I can debrief him on our projects and actually get some work done around here.”

The unmistakably relaxed and informal tone of Director Park Hong Jun’s voice pierced through the idle chatter that filled the room and brought everyone’s attention to him. Seungri smiled at the collective groans around him as the group of employees scattered and went back to their work areas while complaining about not having the opportunity to ask all the questions that they wanted to ask. The younger employees left begrudgingly, but with smiles on their faces, because they knew that as long as Director Park was around, non of the older workers would dare reprimand them about acting so “unprofessionally” in the work place. Unlike the rest of the senior staff, Director “Teddy” Park Hong Jun was not a stickler for stuffy work policies and formalities. Many older workers blame his American upbringing for his laid back attitude, but the fact that he was in his thirties and therefore significantly younger than the fifty and sixty year old senior staff members played a huge role in it as well. Most of the office workers were his age and younger, but the top management roles consisted mainly of older seniors. He wanted to help bridge the gap between management and employees starting with the work culture and while the younger workers respected and looked up to him, senior management saw him as a rebel trying to stir up trouble for the company.

Luckily, Director Park had some powerful people backing him up and on top of that, he was damn good at his job. It was an open secret within the company that the Executive Vice President wants to promote Teddy to Vice President upon the current VP’s retirement. Director Park in turn intended to put a good word in for Seungri so that he could take over his old Director position upon his promotion. Some people didn’t like the look of things as Vice President Kim Moon Chul has expressed his interest in retiring within the next five years. If everything happens accordingly, Seungri would be the Director of Finance before he even turned thirty. It was a lofty title to hold at that age, but he has been working his hardest to show that he deserved it. He knows that he’s the most qualified person in the company to take that position right now and he had the numbers to prove it. However, he’s worried that he’ll have some sort of mutiny at hand if it ever gets to that point: there were many, many people who felt like they were more entitled to such a promotion than he was and they’ve been showing their disapproval of it all through a general mistreatment of Seungri. Ordering him to do menial tasks, trying to place blame on him when things go wrong, even petty things like bumping into him “accidentally” or conveniently spilling coffee whenever he was around. Teddy could only help him if it happened within his presence, but he couldn’t look out for Seungri all the time.

“To my office, Department Head Lee,” Teddy repeated. Seungri automatically followed Teddy back into his office, where they sat down near his desk and Teddy immediately demanded Seungri fill him in on what has been going on with Youngbae’s case.

It was easy for Seungri to tell Teddy everything about the incident, because talking to Teddy was always easy. He was Seungri’s greatest confidant and he could talk to him about things that he couldn’t talk about with Youngbae, mainly Youngbae himself. After telling Teddy the whole story, the older man sunk back into his chair as if in shock. Then, his features visibly became agitated and he sat straight up in his chair again to slam his hand on the desk out of frustration.

“ _Fuck_ , they haven’t even gotten a single clue as to who this asshole that attacked Youngbae could be? Shit, are they even doing their jobs right?”

Seungri smiled because Teddy was enacting all of the frustration Seungri himself had been keeping to himself, which was mostly for Youngbae’s sake. It made him happy to know that he wasn’t the only one who found the whole thing ridiculous.

“Korea isn’t a China, London, or Chicago, but we’ve got a pretty extensive CCTV system in public places. They managed to find footage of Youngbae walking to and from the area, but they haven’t found a single clip of the perpetrator?” Seungri couldn’t help but shake his head in disbelief at the thought.

“And what about Victim A? The girl that Youngbae said he saw?” Teddy asked.

“Nothing. From the news articles and what little the police told me, they haven’t found any evidence that she was even there. They probably think it’s just a blip in his memory due to the head injury.”

“That doesn’t mean that they’d discredit it though,” Teddy countered. “If they posted a statement about a ‘Suspected Victim A’ in the news, they’re probably looking into Youngbae’s claims because they can’t prove that there wasn’t a girl there. A second witness to this would be huge.”

“Yes, but only _if_ she exists and only _if_ she decides to come forward. Maybe her memory is hazy, like Youngbae’s. Maybe she was drunk at the time and doesn’t remember anything. Or maybe she’s too terrified to come forward,” Seungri pointed out.

“Wow, can you be any _more_ optimistic?” Teddy drawled sarcastically.

“I’m just _saying_ , the chances don’t look too good,” Seungri answered defensively.

It was Teddy’s turn to shake his head and the two fell into a short lived silence.

“So...What’s _really_ bothering you?” Teddy finally asked. There was no more sarcasm or humor in his voice this time and Seungri knew that he couldn’t dodge past this question. Like Youngbae, Teddy had the ability to read him like a book and the two had hanged up on Seungri more than once in the past. He didn’t know how else to phrase his question without sounding too paranoid so Seungri just went ahead and said it.

“Do you think that someone in the company could have hired someone to try and kill Youngbae in order to get to me?”

There was another beat of silence in which Teddy couldn’t decide if he wanted to burst out laughing or not. In the end, he decided that the panicked look on the younger man’s face was real enough for him to take Seungri’s question seriously. He tried to break it down as logically as possible to assuage Seungri’s fears.

“Our company is a medium sized company on the rise, but we’re nowhere near the likes of Samsung, Hyundai Motors, or SK Group. If we worked for a company like one of those, I wouldn’t dismiss the likelihood of it being a hit of some sort. But SungShin Co.? A company that dabbles a bit in electronics, robotics, AI, and smart appliances for the home? We make decent money, but by no means would we ever be anything close to rich.”

“People have killed for far less though,” Seungri said morosely.

“Dark,” Teddy commented. “But true, nonetheless.” He put firm hand on Seungri’s shoulder and spoke the next few words low and quiet. “Do you really think it was attempted murder though? Do the police think that?”

“No,” Seungri answered with a shake of his head. “They don’t think it’s anything more than an assault, but...something just doesn’t add up. Something just doesn’t feel right about the whole thing, I can’t explain it.”

Seungri sighed and slumped into his chair.

“And...and I did something stupid that night. We went to that club because of me. He left, because of me, because I said something stupid when I was drunk and I didn’t really mean it, but —.”

“ _But_ it isn’t your fault,” Teddy finished before him, effectively cutting Seungri off before he could fully wallow in his own guilt. “Don’t even go there. Blaming yourself isn’t going to change what happened. Being there for Youngbae right now, showing that you care about him: that’s what you need to be focusing on.”

It was hard to sink back into his negative thoughts when Teddy was there to keep him afloat. Seungri couldn’t help but smile back at Teddy who gave him a playful shove in the shoulder.

“God, I wish Youngbae was better already so that I don’t have to take care of your sorry ass anymore,” Teddy joked, which only made Seungri grin harder.

“Alright, enough about me. Brief me on what’s been happening since I’ve been gone. I’ll fix this mess of a department for you and then we can talk about who is taking care of whom.

 

* * *

  
The day passed by quicker than Seungri thought it would. After leaving Teddy’s office, Seungri set out to touch base with all of the managers within the department. He made sure everyone was on the same page before going back to his desk to go over the last few projects the company had decided to fund and to update their fiscal projections for next year. Meanwhile, a few people met him at his desk to ask him questions about things on a project by project basis and, after doing a refresher with Teddy on the old projects the company had been working on, Seungri was all caught up information wise and was quick to resolve any issues. Everything quieted down near the end of the day. He still had people he needed to schedule meetings with and a few clients to call in the next few days, but all the pertinent things were addressed and Seungri even had time to spare.

The frantic phone calls from his co-workers and subordinates he got while he was away seemed overly dramatic in hindsight. There weren’t any big issues that needed his attention and anything truly important, Teddy had already handled.

“Those bastards,” Seungri said underneath his breath as he idly went through some spreadsheets on the computer. “They made everything seem so dire just so that they could get me into the office and ask about Youngbae.”

He should have realized it sooner, but Seungri never thought that everyone would connect the dots so quickly and figure out that Youngbae was Victim B. The entire office was bristling with rumors and speculation about what happened and after Teddy’s little stunt this morning, nobody has bothered Seungri about it since. It was a relief to be left alone, but at the same time, Seungri knew people had questions and if he didn’t answer them, wild stories will start popping up out of nowhere.

Something that he didn’t really know how to handle was the office buzz going around about him and Youngbae. It wasn’t a secret that Seungri and Youngbae had known each other since high school or that Youngbae was the one that recommended Seungri to apply for a job opening at SungShin Company. People knew that they shared an apartment and are generally together most of the time, but nobody other than Teddy knew about their...well, Seungri can’t even call it a past relationship: even he didn’t know where they stand, then or now.

A flash of guilt quickly washed over him. Their complicated relationship was mainly the reason why Youngbae was at the wrong place at the wrong time and such a terrible thing happened to him. Everybody can say that it was a random attack, but after the police asked him if there were people out there that wanted to hurt him by hurting Youngbae, Seungri couldn’t get the idea out of his mind. Even though Teddy alleviated his fears somewhat, and Seungri was thinking less and less that anybody from work had anything to do with it (though he couldn’t eliminate the possibility completely), something in his gut was telling him it was planned somehow. _A revenge hit?_ He shook his head.

 _Stop. Don’t even go there_ , he thought. He knew once he started, he’d be going down endless rabbit holes that would just end up making him feel paranoid.

Seungri checked the time on his computer and saw that it was nearing three o’clock. With all of the most pressing matters already handled and most of the week planned out, Seungri made up his mind and stood up. He shut down his computer and cleaned up his desk a bit after sending an e-mail to everyone in his department that he was leaving the office a little early today. After gathering his things, he made his way to Teddy’s office and let himself in after a polite knock on the door.

“I’m heading out a little early,” he said and Teddy stopped his typing to look up and Seungri from his computer.

“Alright. Don’t tell anybody I said this but leave whenever you feel like you need to. Just let me know and I’ll think up of some excuse for you.” Teddy smiled and then added, “Tell Youngbae I said hi.”

“I will,” Seungri responded before ducking his head out of the office. He used a back door to escape the building and quickly made his way to his parked car. Up until the point where he was buckled into the driver’s seat, Seungri had expected for someone to see him and call out his name or for his phone to ring just as he got in the car. When neither of those things happened, he was hit with a sense of relief.

The overcast sky seemed to threaten rain, but the roads were still dry as Seungri made his way home. It wasn’t unusual to have a rainy August, but several weeks of overcast skies without rain was getting ridiculous. Not to mention that it was still summer and the heat coupled with the perpetual cloudy skies made everything terribly humid and oppressive during the day. Everyone was waiting for relief from the mugginess and so many have been praying for it to rain. Seungri has also been wishing for cloudless and sunny days. Heat aside, he just wanted a reason to get Youngbae out of the apartment. He hasn’t really left ever since the attack and even though he’s still in recovery, Seungri thought that being cooped up inside wasn’t going to help Youngbae get any better. On top of that, next week Youngbae was going to start attending doctor recommended therapy sessions as well as visit a neurologist. The neurologist visits were aimed at making sure that the way Youngbae’s brain processed, stored, and recalled memories were still functioning properly and that his head injury and subsequent memory loss at the time of his attack isn’t still affecting his memory making process. The therapy sessions were geared towards dealing with the residual trauma of the attack and he had already worked out a schedule with Teddy that allowed him to be there for Youngbae’s appointments. Seungri was determined to not let Youngbae down this time.

 _Not again,_ he vowed. _Never again._

He had been driving for a little while when he began to notice that cars were starting to slow down. Glancing at the digital clock on the dash of the car, Seungri saw that it was still an hour til rush hour time at least, so to have traffic during this time was highly unusual.

Must be some construction up ahead, he thought idly. He was so close to the apartment too, just two blocks down and a right hand turn away from home.

It wasn’t until he heard the sound of a siren blaring from behind him that he started having an uneasy feeling. Two police vehicles followed by an ambulance raced past him and all of the cars in the left most lane tried to merge into the middle lane to allow the vehicles space to pass through. Seungri watch the emergency vehicles drive down the block, sirens blaring and lights flashing. Then, he watched them take a right hand turn.

Right down the street to where the apartment was.

To where _Youngbae_ was.

He didn’t wait to see or hear the fire engine coming up from behind in his rear view mirror: he saw the thin wisps of black smoke trailing up into the sky from the buildings to his right and he was out of the car. He didn’t even remember taking off his seatbelt or pulling his necktie off so that he could run and breathe unimpeded.

Seungri only needed to dash past one lane of traffic to make it to the side walk and traffic had slowed down enough that he didn’t have to worry about being hit by a car. People honked and yelled at him though as he passed, probably wondering why the hell he was abandoning his car and running through traffic, but he didn’t care.

His shoes pounded against the cement sidewalk loudly as he ran down the block and made sharp right turn, nearly knocking someone over as he bumped into them, but he didn’t care enough to apologize or turn around to check if they were okay.

All he could see were the emergency vehicles outside of his apartment and the crowd of residents and onlookers surrounding it.

He saw people running out of the apartment and dark smoke was coming out of a window, Youngbae’s broken window that was supposed to be replaced today.

Seungri ran faster. He ran into the crowd and pushed people out of the way, earning him angry glares and dirty looks. He could hear someone screaming Youngbae’s name and for a second, he thought he was the one doing the screaming, but it _couldn’t_ have been him, could it? He knew the sound of his own voice and his voice didn’t sound like _that_.

He broke through the crowd and saw the entrance to the apartment right in front of him, less than fifty feet away. Before he could get any closer, a person in uniform grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back.

“STOP! This building is being evacuated, sir. I can’t let you go in there!” a male officer exclaimed. Seungri twisted his arm free, but the officer was quick to grab him and pull him into a bear hold.

“It’s fucking dangerous! Sir, we need to make room for the firefighters to do their job!” the officer yelled, clearly frustrated as he struggled to hold Seungri back. No one was coming out of the building anymore and a fire truck had pulled up close by.

Seungri just couldn’t find the words to explain. His panic was holding his rational mind hostage and the more he scanned the crowd without seeing Youngbae’s face, the more panicked he got.

The officers were quick to set up a perimeter with yellow tape and now, only Seungri, the police officer, and the firemen prepping the fire truck were within the perimeter.

“I...There’s a man and he must be...I can’t find Youngbae, he must still be —.”

That was all he managed to convey to the officers before the explosion.

A loud _**BANG**_ followed by a collective shriek from the crowd and an intense wave of pressure and heat had both the officer and Seungri falling backwards and over themselves. Everyone ducked as bits of glass, plaster, splintered wood, and other debris flew became dangerous projectiles as they flew into the air.

Seungri was left shocked and breathless on the ground as the explosion knocked the air out of him and sent him and the officer sprawling. His ears were ringing and his left wrist was burning.

First responders grabbed him and the officer by their shirts and literally dragged them across the street and away from the burning building. People were then helping him to his feet and urging him towards the back of the ambulance, but Seungri wanted to look, he wanted to see with his own eyes what had happened. Once he did, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He saw flames reaching for the dark skies, smoke polluting the air. He could still feel the heat that forced everyone back and he saw the gaping hole in the area of the building where Youngbae’s window once was.

He heard that strange voice screaming out Youngbae’s name again, but this time he _knew_ it was his own voice. He could feel his throat getting hoarse after saying Youngbae’s name over and over again. He could feel the hot tears escaping from the corner of his eyes and the hardness of the ground as he fell to his knees.

 _Please, please,_ he begged silently. _Please, answer me...Youngbae, **please**._

Seungri continued to call out his name.

But he never answered back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, an update! This chapter was longer than I originally planned and everything got a bit chaotic as I moved to a new city for work and started my first real job. I've been feeling the need and want to write again, so anticipate more updates on my other stories too! Thanks to everyone who is still reading this! Leave a comment below to show your love <3


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